Paul Webster in Paris
The Guardian
Several 160-year-old pornographic photographs are among 300 daguerrotypes going on show at Paris's Orsay museum, in an exhibition which may rekindle interest in a neglected ancestor of modern photography.
The images, fixed on silver-covered bronze plates, prove that Jacques Daguerre's clumsy invention pioneered every aspect of modern picture-taking, from page 3-style nudes to photojournalism, arty portraits to wide-angle panoramas, and exotic travel snaps to microscopic studies.
Often seen as a small step in the run-up to the discovery of film, the daguerrotype had, in reality, nearly 20 years of glory during which millions of images were recorded, using cameras the size of suitcases.
The exhibition curator, Dominique de Font-Réaulx, says the Orsay show which opens tomorrow is intended to "bring the daguerrotype out of purgatory", where it has been since France's national collection was sold off to Kodak in 1939.
The exhibition, which transfers to New York later this year, contains some photographs from private collections which have never been shown before.
Daguerre's invention was announced in 1839, and he was rewarded with a state pension. The process quickly became public property, causing a rush to set up photographic studios.
The limitations of long exposure times and complicated development methods did not curb daguerrotype photographers' imagination.
Half of the images in the show are anonymous. Amateur explorers brought back pictures of landscapes and people from all over the world; scientists attached cameras to microscopes; and "newsmen" recorded events such as the 1848 Paris uprising. The government, though, was not ready for a flourishing trade in daguerrotypes of nudes, let alone the shots of lesbian embraces which survived to be shown in the exhibition.
"Photography as we know it would have come about anyway, because so many rivals were working on easier processes in France, Germany and Britain," Ms de Font-Réaulx said. "But by then, all the possible uses for the invention had been exploited by the pioneers."
French Daguerreotype
Linear Mode
